


The Proposal

by portable_tragedy



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:34:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26308651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/portable_tragedy/pseuds/portable_tragedy
Summary: Proposals aren't for the faint of heart and this isn't a story Aang will be sharing over diplomatic dinners. (One-Shot)
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 81





	The Proposal

There was a lot of meat. Like, the amount of meat one might need if they were feeding a pounce of cat-eagles. It was smoked and fried and baked, on skewers and plates and in soups. The sheer amount of meat made Aang a little nauseated. Or maybe that was nerves. Or maybe it was nerves plus the hundred dead animals that had sacrificed themselves so he could smooth the way for the question he had to ask Sokka. Sokka was due to arrive any minute but Aang still looked around his rooms one more time. Katara’s things had all been tucked out of sight. Not that Sokka didn’t know they more or less shared their space. 

Sokka had been there a hundred times. His own were just down the hall, so, really he couldn’t object today. Unless he objected to the entire situation where they were all more or less living on top of each other. He could object to that. Hakoda could object to that. But one thing at a time. Closing his eyes, Aang focused his breathing and settled his racing heart. He had faced scarier things than asking his best friend, brother of his heart, for his blessing to marry Katara. 

Of course, Sokka would say yes. Sokka loved them both. This was not like facing down Azula, or Ozai, or even the Unagi. 

No. No. It was worse. If Sokka or Hakoda said no was it even respectful to still ask Katara? Katara would probably be furious he asked for their blessing anyway, even once he told her he’d asked for their blessing and not their permission. Katara was grown, a Master Waterbender and Healer, founder of the Republic City Hospital and Healing Arts Training Facility. She didn’t need anyone’s permission for anything. But if they said no, that they didn’t want him as part of their family, how could he still marry her? 

The knock at the door shot him up into the air and Momo shot off his shoulder, chittering angrily. “Sorry, Momo.” 

With one more steadying breath, he called out, “It’s open.”

Sokka stopped not even a half-a-step into the room. “What is that smell? What is that amazing, delicious, beautiful smell?”

Aang laughed as Sokka drifted in, following his nose. Sokka might have been on the United Republic Council and one day Chief of the Southern Water Tribe, he might have shot up to 6 foot tall and finally learned how to ask women out without saying “Would you like to do an activity with me?” but he was still the meat and sarcasm guy. 

“Aang! Aang! There’s so much..this is so beautiful. So beautiful.” He reached for a meat skewer but before he took a bite, he stopped. He frowned at the skewer, then the table set with meat. He dropped it slowly. “This is tainted meat, isn’t it? What have you done, Aang? What do you want me to do? How could you use meat this way?”

“Sokka.” 

“You, you tried to bribe me with meat? To lure me into a meat-induced euphoria, didn’t you? And you call yourself the Avatar.”

“Sokka, please, listen. It’s--”

“Well, I’ll have you know that I won’t let this meat go to waste just because it is a betrayal of our friendship. No,” he sighed dramatically and picked back up his skewer, “I’ll eat it but I won’t enjoy it, spiritually.”

“Sokka! I am trying to ask for your blessing to marry your sister if you would just stop talking!”

Sokka dropped the meat again, all of it falling in a jumble across the table. “What?”

“Uh,” Aang scratched the back of his head, feeling 12 years old again and hating it. “I..want...wanted to ask, to beg,” he bowed then, “Councilman Sokka of the Watertribe, I humbly request your blessing to offer your sister this betrothal necklace.” Aang lifted the necklace out towards Sokka, still bowing. 

Sokka took it in surprisingly gentle hands. The quiet finally had Aang straightening but he had to screw his courage up to look at Sokka, who he outpaced in height by two inches, in the face. Sokka stroked a finger along the necklace, his blue eyes soft. Was he, was he crying?

“Aang. You did not have to soften me up with meat first. This is beautiful. She’s going to love it.” Sokka didn’t hand it back but stepped forward and gripped Aang in a hard hug. “I would say welcome to the family, but you’ve been a part of the family for a long time. Aang the Trusted.” Sokka stepped back, handing a speechless and near tears-himself Aang the necklace. “Plus, that’s a lot better than the one you let Momo carve a year ago.”

Aang carefully folded the necklace into a pocket but shot Sokka, now chomping happily on a meat stick, a hard look. “You know I carved it. It was my first try!”

“Yeah, yeah. But it looked like Momo carved it. If you gave it to her, you’d definitely have to say you let Momo help.”

When the door opened, Aang jumped guiltily only to find Katara, her eyes tired, in the doorway. “Let Momo help with what?” She tried, and failed, to stifle a yawn as she shut the door behind her. She wore blue, water tribe blue, in an outfit made for the heat of the Fire Nation. “Is that..meat? Sokka, why would you bring all that meat to Aang’s rooms?” She had crossed the room and curled into Aang, who was still staring at her with guilt-wide gray eyes, by the time she finished speaking. 

Aang’s arms went automatically around her, one hand finding smooth skin at her waist thanks to the drape of the Fire Nation cut of her clothes, and stroked. He started to speak, but Sokka beat him to it. “He owed me and we were going to hang out because weren’t you supposed to be working?”

It was a testament to her exhaustion that she only nodded. “Mmhmm. But I got called in last night and I haven’t slept since the day before yesterday so they sent me home. Or I sent me home. Either way,” her eyes drifted closed and Aang took a little more of her weight. “I’m home.”

“Ah, Sokka, maybe we could hang out later? I think your sister needs to go to bed.”

Sokka raised a brow. “Well, she has her own room, doesn’t she?”

Katara opened her eyes and frowned. “And?”

Sokka looked around the room and popped a hunk of meat into his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully and swallowed before saying, “Well, I don’t see any of your things here, Katara, so maybe you should go nap in your own room.”

Katara started to straighten from Aang’s arms and he glowered over her head at Sokka, then forcefully snuggled her. “Of course her things are here, Sokka!”

“Oh? If I didn’t know better I’d think someone had moved out.”

When she tried to rise again, Aang smushed her back down but Katra gave him a hefty shove and wriggled away. “What are you talking about? What is going on?”

With narrow-eyed suspicion, she turned to look around the room. And realized, with an unpleasant drop in her belly, that Sokka was right. She always left her hair combs and a brush on Aang’s vanity and this morning a robe for her had hung from the foot of his bed. Her formal water tribe gown, the one she’d worn for the Council meeting only last night, had been draped over his changing screen. The waterbending scrolls she was currently studying had been piled up on the low table where the meat was now piled but she saw no sign of them. It was little things, little things that had slowly come to drift between their two shared spaces. Not that Aang had much in the way of worldly possessions to leave in her space, there it was more his essence and the ever-open windows even when the temperature dropped at night. 

“Is someone coming to visit?” Someone that he wouldn’t want to know that he and the waterbender shared their nights.

Aang shook his head. “No, Katara, it’s nothing. I was just cleaning and---”

“And all my things were in your way?”

“No! I just, I didn’t want people to get the wrong idea--NO! That’s not it.”

She didn’t look tired now, she looked furious. But Aang knew her fury was rooted in hurt. “The wrong idea? The idea that the Avatar has a lover?”

Sokka shuttered. “Um, could we not use that word? It gives me the worst oogies. I thought we’d agreed to never use that word.”

Ignoring her brother, Katara continued, “Or that the Avatar does more than have meetings and commune with the spirits? You’re the one that said air nomads didn’t even have weddings! That their relationships were permissive and free!” Aang could see, with dawning horror, tears well up in her eyes but Katara fought them back as she tipped her chin at him. “So what is it, Aang? Were you ashamed or were you starting to think that permissive sounded pretty good?”

Sokka’s jaw dropped, his eyes wide, but before he or Aang could say a thing Katara swept out of the room. 

“Permissive? Permissive! You want to sleep with people who are not my sister?” Sokka gagged. “You made me say that indignantly!”

Aang had been pale, pale and confused and shocked, but he whipped a hard gaze on Sokka. In that moment, there was no resemblance to the 12-year-old from the iceberg. Aang had grown into a man in the last eight years, tall and lean and powerful not just because of the Avatar spirit but because of his own. “I just asked you for your sister’s hand in marriage and you think I want to sleep with other people, Sokka?”

“Right.” Sokka swallowed, scrubbed a hand over his face. “Sorry. She..what was she talking about?”

“I cleared her things so you wouldn’t be distracted by the fact that we are already sleeping together.”

Sokka sighed. “I know. I was teasing. You didn’t have to do that any more than you needed to get me all the meat.”

Aang sighed and rubbed a hand over his head, over the bright blue arrow there. “I know. I just...you aren’t just her brother, you’re my family; I wanted you to know that I respect and love you just as I love and respect her.”

Sokka nodded. “Sorry, buddy. I didn’t think she’d react like that.”

“Ah, no,” Aang rubbed at the back of his head and took a chair. He bent the other one out so Sokka could sit too. “She’s overworked. Overtired. And she’d asked me about air nomad relationships awhile ago.”

“I take it commitment wasn’t a big thing.”

Aang smiled ruefully. “No. Air nomads tried not to have earthly ties and that included individual, romantic love. Sure, people still had favorites and some air nomads were together for life, but, more had multiple partners. Sometimes partners they were only with at certain festivals. Love was meant to be shared, not to be possessive. The air acolytes are...taken..with that idea as well. A few of them have..uh,” the crest of his sharp-cheeks went hot, “offered to, uh, suggested they’d be interested in...”

“Really?” Sokka nodded. “And Katara didn’t blood bend them out of the temple?”

“She wasn’t there.”

“And you still told her?!”

“I had to!” Aang defended, jumping up again. “They said if I had more partners there’d be more airbenders.”

“They don’t want to just…” Sokka made a crude gesture and Aang sighed. “They want to have your babies?”

“I told them no! I told them I was with Katara and I would be faithful to Katara!”

Sokka nibbled on some more meat. “And how’d that go over?”  


“Some of them suggested we could, we could, _all_ of us could…”

Sokka started laughing then, laughing so hard Aang was afraid he was going to fall out of his chair. “You didn’t,” he gasped, “you did not tell my sister that, did you?”

“No.” Aang sank into the chair miserably again.

“Oh, thank the spirits. I can’t wait to tell her!”

“Sokka, you are not helping.”

“Right. Right.” He calmed, mostly, with only a little chuckle erupting between breaths. “So, she’s feeling insecure.”

“Yes. I’ve tried to make her realize there is nothing for her to be insecure about. If it weren’t Katara, it wouldn’t be anybody.”

Sokka looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “That might not be helping.”

“What?”

“I mean, of course, you would try to repopulate the airbenders. So the Avatar cycle wouldn’t be broken. So, if you weren’t in love with Katara it stands to reason you’d take the air acolytes up on their,” Sokka couldn’t help the curling grin of his mouth, “generous offer.”

“Sokka,” Aang said oppressively. 

“It is generous, Aang.” But then he dropped the smirk and leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his thighs. “And she needs to know that you can acknowledge that but that it is not what you want, that you want her, that you aren’t going to blame her if you don’t have a small tribe of airbenders by the time you're thirty. You aren’t the only one who is feeling _that_ pressure.”

Aang was quiet, contemplating for a long time. Then, he said: “Sokka, you earned that meat.”

Aang left the man to his poor digestive choices and went in search of his waterbender.

He knocked on her door but didn’t receive an answer. After knocking again, Aang nudged it open only to find her asleep in the copper bath. Her long hair was haphazardly bundled up, her neck crooked at a decidedly awkward angle, and one hand hung limp over the curved edge. It was the swollen eyes, though, that pinched his heart, the shadows there. Aang crouched, then lifted a hand to brush back a damp strand of hair, curling and clinging to her skin. 

“Mmf. G’way.”

“Katara, sweetie, let me get you out,” he murmured. Unable to resist, Aang drifted his mouth along the curve of her shoulder. 

“Aang?” Her voice was sleep-slurred, heavy and questioning. 

“May I?”

“Yes.” He stood, then slid his arms into the water and scooped her out. Cradling her against his chest, he nuzzled into her hair. She smelled of lotus and he finally took note of the petals floating in the water. Who’d heated it for her?

“Mad at you,” she mumbled, her lips moving against his neck. It made his stomach tight. 

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Cause you want little baby airbenders?”

He didn’t find it funny, but simply stood her up and bent the water off of both of them. He reached for a sleeping robe but Katara crawled tiredly onto the bed. She was stunning. He couldn’t help the quick appreciation of muscles lean and strong; all that dark, soft skin; the curve of her waist and breast and hip. She’d been charming when they were children, pretty and sweetly fierce, and the center of his world after waking. Now, she was sumptuous and devastating, sweetly fierce and still the center of his world. With no more thought than that, he peeled his robe up and over his head, toed off his shoes. He crawled into the bed beside her and tugged a blanket up over them. 

She sighed and he curled around her. “Neversaidyoudidn’t,” she mumbled drowsily, turning into him. 

Aang trailed his hand along the slight indentation of her spine, a little furrow formed there from her arching and muscle. When it softened, he kept scratching his nails slightly over her tender skin. “Because I do, Katara. I want them with you. Or little waterbenders,” he kissed the top of her head, “or non-benders. Whatever we get I’ll be grateful and in love. Go to sleep, now, we’ll talk about this when you wake up.”

“Stay?”

“Always.”

* * *

She slept for ten hours. Aang did wake up from a two-hour nap and get work to bring back to bed. Katara snuggled up against him, her head pillowed on his leg, but he worked around it. He took a brief break for a walk downstairs to the communal kitchen and came back with tea and fruit and noodles. Then he sat, she snuggled back in, and he worked. 

When she finally woke up, he’d fallen asleep with scrolls scattered around them and his hand tangled in her hair. He was more or less sitting up and she was more or less sprawled, naked, on top of him. 

Light from her open window illuminated his face. It was a little blurry, their fight. She’d lost a patient that night, a seven-year-old girl. It had been...she didn’t want to think about it. She’d worked for 14 hours straight, first on the girl, then on her brother. He’d survived, but what would losing his sister do to him? Some street gang hand taken a liking to her and the boy, only two years older, had tried to beat them away, protect her. Republic City was a lovely dream but the war echoed more strongly in its streets than perhaps anywhere else. 

She’d come home, wrung out, angry, and wanted Aang to herself. And taken the opportunity to release some of that anger when the slightest one had presented itself. She’d hurt him. She hated that. He loved her so totally and she had used that to hurt him. 

Sighing, Katara shifted over him, the friction of their skin igniting a heat she would have felt inappropriate if it wasn’t a constant between them. She didn’t know the exact moment that sweet childhood kisses had led to fire, to desire so potent she couldn’t hold his hand without wanting, but once it had ignited, the passion had never cooled. She kissed over his heart, then his neck, jaw, cheek. When he turned his head, their lips met. 

“Hi,” she whispered once they pulled apart enough that she could speak. 

“Hi,” he whispered back, nuzzled his nose with hers. His hands were warm and sure and wide, stroking her back, cupping the back of her head. 

“I’m sorry,” said softly. Katara closed her eyes when he kissed her gently, so gently, in response.

“We need to talk about it.”

“I know. I don’t think you want anyone else.” She shifted and his want was obvious between them. Made her smile. “I don’t just mean that either.”

Aang smiled, lifted his chin to kiss her temple, her forehead. “I want you in every way, Katara, and only you.”

With a sigh, she pushed back. She liked that his eyes drug down, sliding appreciatively over her in the moonlight, before she half-wrapped the sheet around her. “Thank you for staying with me.” She reached out, stroking her fingers down his chest, over the hard muscles of his stomach. 

Aang sat up a little more, caught one of her hands in both of his. “What happened today?”

Katara shook her head, wild, tangled hair spilling over bare shoulders. “It was...bad. I’ll tell you the rest later. I just..I wanted..I was angry and I took it out on you and I’m sorry.”

Aang nodded. “Okay.”

“Why did you remove all of my things?”

“I didn’t. They’re all still there and I planned to have them back out before you got home.” She saw his cheeks go pink and reached up to cup his face. He leaned into it, pressing his hand over hers. “I wanted to talk to Sokka about something….please don’t ask what….and I thought it would be easier if he couldn’t see that we live together and if he had a lot of meat.”

Katara _wanted_ to ask what, of course. She saw by his slight smile that he knew it was killing her. He laughed and leaned forward, kissing her nose. “I’ll tell you soon.”

Katara sighed, let her hand drift again, down his arm and back up. It gave her sparks, pleasant and needy, to trace the curve of relaxed muscle, the smoothness of his skin. “I am,” she hesitated, tried again. “I am...insecure...about the air acolytes and the air nomad lifestyle. I,” she looked away, it would be so much easier to say if she didn’t have to look at him. But she forced herself back up to those big opalescent grey eyes. There were times when she would swear she could see those past lives looking back at her, when Aang was more than Aang. 

And then there were times, like now, when his whole being was so focused on her that she could swear, for a little while, he was just hers and didn’t belong to the world. “I would understand if it appealed to you, the possibility of having more children than I can bear. Of having them with non-benders who, who are maybe more likely to give you an airbender as they’re spiritually aligned with you. And, of course, I understand how they are drawn to you.” She smiled slightly, though he only studied her with that quiet intensity. “You are handsome, kind, intelligent. You are the Avatar and you saved the world, but you’re also, you’re also Aang who throws pies and rides air scooters and goes penguin sledding and how could anyone not fall in love with you? 

“And I’m asking you to give up so much to be mine. To be tethered and that hinders you as an airbender and the Avatar, stops you from having...from making...limits the number of airbenders that can be, be,” her cheeks were hot and she had to force the words out past the image in her mind of her Aang with other women, “that can be in the next generation.”

“Katara, you never asked me to give up anything. Being with you, building a life with you is not a sacrifice.” He thought about it, then, getting the betrothal necklace and making it clear that she was a choice he was making, a choice that he felt joyous and certain of, but he didn’t want her insecurity linked with that moment. The two didn’t belong together. 

“This is the life I choose, Katara: You and me and the family we’ll have. If it’s selfish to risk not having more airbenders, then so be it. I’m selfish. Letting go of you, being able to let go of you in order to control the Avatar State--I was only able to do that because I knew I had to let go in order to save you.” He laughed, caught her face with both hands. “From the moment I woke up to the moment I cross into the spirit world for the final time, Katara--no, even after, even after, I will always choose you, want you, love you. There was no one before you and there will be no one until we’re together again.”

She practically leaped into his arms, then. She wrapped around him, smoothed her hands over his head, took his mouth. He answered. The need had been there all along, banked. He’d learned to live with it. It was part of him now, this intense desire for her, part of every interaction. They’d learned, together, to bank it, but it took so little to flame. 

The sheet had fallen when she’d lunged so he found her breasts with his hands. He weighed them, kneaded and rolled a thumb over the peaked nipples. Katara whimpered against him mouth. “I love you, just you, only ever you.”

She bit him, hard. He bucked against her, dazzled. She knew him, still managed to surprise him. Her voice was a throaty purr against his cheek, then his neck as she drug her mouth over him, hot and teasing. “Just you. Always us.” 

They were lost in it then, in each other. Understanding and forgiveness came like this, sometimes, for them. Maybe it was the time spent running, death a constant threat. Maybe it was the long separation when his work took him away and she had to wait, not knowing how he was. Maybe it was the only way to express a bond so total: the physical and the spiritual were a tangle between them. Sometimes they were gentle, slow and soft, but never after a fight. After a fight, after they’d talked through it all that excess ran off in rough, searing need. 

Katara underscored that need now, rocking against him. “Aang?”

He groaned in answer, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses to her neck, her shoulders.

“Aang, now.”

He shifted, pulled his loose pants down and before he’d gotten them half-off Katara plunged down onto him. Somehow, he got them off his legs, somehow he bucked up into her without falling apart. 

His cupped her rear, squeezed. She rocked harder, faster, lifting so her breasts were in his face. He kissed them, bit hard so she cried out. “Again, please. Please.”

So he did, found her nipple and sucked it hard. Her nails scraped down the line of his chakra, her thighs tightened on him and she rode and rode him, wet and tight and hot. And she came, fast, crying out his name over and over. He was smiling when he started to lift her, but she shook her head. Pressed him back onto the bed and started gliding, slow, squeezing him as she did. She laid him back and lifted his hands near his head. She kissed her way down his neck, across his chest. Nipped his ear, suckled hard where she knew it made him pulse, his hips jerking out of rhythm. 

When she lifted again, rose a little on her knees, he couldn’t help but look where her breasts swayed, nipples dragging against his chest. She was smiling when he finally looked up. She curled her hands with his. 

“I love you,” he whispered, voice raw, raspy with need. 

“Marry me.”

Aang’s body jerked hard and Katara moaned, buried her mouth against his throat and licked as if thanking him for the pleasure. “Wh-Ah, spirits, Katara.” He felt her internal muscles squeeze and the world went to stars. 

“Marry me,” she whispered it again, against his throat, sealing the request with a kiss. 

“Katara.”

She rose up, her eyes alight, full of power. She rose and fell over him, slick and tight, supple and powerful. “Marry me, Aang.”

“I’m supposed to ask.”

She laughed, bent to kiss him quick and hard. Got sidetracked and dipped her tongue into his mouth, scraped her teeth sharp over his lower lip so he was quivering. His shook under her, trying to restrain himself from grabbing, from climaxing. She licked his chin, bit there with a playful nip and squeezed him harder as she drug up and up before slamming down. 

“Marry me, marry me, marry me. Let’s spend an entire week naked, swimming and sleeping and,” she slammed her hips harder, letting the motion make the point. Aang groaned arching under her, then rocking up, up, harder and harder. “And loving each other. Marry me and make babies with me and fight with me and love with me as long as we have, Aang. Please. Please.”

He gasped a yes. She demanded clarification. “I’ll marry you,” he gasped against her, his fingers gripping tight, his hips matching hers slam for slam. “We’ll be naked for a week straight and everyone can wait until the Avatar’s wife is thoroughly satisfied. Katara, Katara, Katara.” 

When she laughed, she was luminous. She let them both soar up and over together then, crying out in unison, not tethered to the world but to each other. 

Hours, minutes, year later--Aang couldn’t tell the passing of time because it was all in her heartbeat, their ragged breath---he held her to him. He hooked a leg over hers, wrapped his arms around her waist. “You’re going to be the one to tell our betrothal story when we’re asked.”

Katara laughed, moving against him in a way that made him moan. “It’s your reputation, Avatar Aang.”

“I don’t think I’d mind this,” he rolled his hips and Katara practically purred, “being my legacy.”

When she laughed, he kissed her bright face. “I still---”

“Me too.” He answered and this time, this time they came together more slowly. This time their eyes were locked together as intensely as their bodies. This time, it was a slow build, each nearing the edge and being pulled back. This time, after, they lay quivering and tangled, loose-limbed, and sated. 

Katara felt one hand lift from her hip, the shift of air, the brush of garments at their side. She didn’t open her eyes, though, kept her cheek nested on Aang’s chest. Her fingers continued to stroke, one over his head, familiarly tracing the arrow on his chakra line, knowing it without needing to see it, the other curled lazily by her face. 

Aang lifted her hair and she felt him sliding something against her skin. His satisfied hum brought her up finally. “What--” She glanced down, reached up with the hand not stroking his head and touched a disk, smooth and cool to the touch.

“Aang?”

“We’re engaged. You needed a necklace.”

“You were going to ask?”

“I’ve been working on that for over a year.” His finger traced the disk that she couldn’t see. “It’s volcanic glass, carved with air and water markings. It represents every corner of the earth we traveled together. Will you wear it?”

He sounded almost shy. Katara curled her hand over his, over the stone. “I will never take it off.” His smile rivaled the spirit light the day she found him in the iceberg.


End file.
